That Jews are evil is of course common knowledge. But when did they become such corrupted? According to modern non-religious motivated anti-Semitic lore. Not when people started to consider them evil, which is another matter. I put the question on a Stormfront’ish board but got no answer. Were the Jews scheming in their evil ways during the Babylonian Captivity? Were they evil when Alexander passed through? Were they evil when they rebelled against Rome? Or did they only become evil at a later time?

Are you stating that Jews are actually evil and you want to know how they got that way, or are you asking how Jews came to be perceived as evil historically? Because those are two very different threads.

When, according to modern non-religious motivated anti-Semitic lore, they became evil. But why, according to modern non-religious motivated anti-Semitic lore, they became evil is also an interesting question.

Although Jews have had it bad throughout history, they really started to get it in the neck in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Consider the whole money-lending thing. From the Wikipedia entry on "usury":

Quote:

As the Jews were ostracized from most professions by local rulers, the church and the guilds, they were pushed into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending. Natural tensions between creditors and debtors were added to social, political, religious, and economic strains.

...financial oppression of Jews tended to occur in areas where they were most disliked, and if Jews reacted by concentrating on moneylending to non-Jews, the unpopularity — and so, of course, the pressure — would increase. Thus the Jews became an element in a vicious circle. The Christians, on the basis of the Biblical rulings, condemned interest-taking absolutely, and from 1179 those who practiced it were excommunicated. Catholic autocrats frequently imposed the harshest financial burdens on the Jews. The Jews reacted by engaging in the one business where Christian laws actually discriminated in their favor, and became identified with the hated trade of moneylending.

Peasants were forced to pay their taxes to Jews who were economically coerced into becoming the "front men" for the lords. The Jews would then be identified as the people taking their earnings. Meanwhile the peasants would remain loyal to the lords.

And of course if you got into debt (especially if you were a lord yourself), nothing solves that problem like stirring up some anti-Semitic fervor by spreading stories of Jews doing horrible things and voila! No more creditor! (Unsurprisingly, the 12th century also saw the rise of blood libel (actual blood libel, not the Sarah Palin version).)

There's a whole list of gruesome stories here (sorry to mine Wikipedia so heavily but it's convenient) but it's just worth mentioning that in more recent times there's the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a persistent bit of rather nasty slander which borrows heavily from earlier works, many of which had nothing whatsover to do with the Jews.

The shorter version of all that is that Jews are convenient scapegoats - historically they've been a minority who have a strange religion, often look quite different and speak a different language, are a close-knit community that doesn't invite in outsiders and don't have any political clout (and accompanying military might). You could blame them for anything and they couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Ok. But what I’m trying to understand is when in history (& why) according to the Nazi-types the Jews became evil. Not why Christian or Muslim have thought Jews to be evil, or when in actual history persecution started.

Well, I'd think that those who hate Jews on a racial basis would say that Jews have always been evil because their genes have always been evil.

Exactly so. In their eyes, Jews are another race entirely, an evil sub-human race who are both bestial (indulging in cannibalism) and conniving (manipulating society behind the scenes). That these are two essentially contradictory viewpoints doesn't seem to bother them.

Again: convenient scapegoats. Reason and facts have little to do with it.

Ok. But what I’m trying to understand is when in history (& why) according to the Nazi-types the Jews became evil. Not why Christian or Muslim have thought Jews to be evil, or when in actual history persecution started.

I don't have a cite here, just a vaguely-remembered third-hand claim.

To entice medieval knights to join the Crusades, Church authorities re-interpreted "Thou shat not kill" as "Thou shalt not kill fellow Christians." This made the dreaded Saracens fair game for knightly bloodlust. But up north in Germany, it had the unintended consequence of making Jews fair game as well, and started a long tradition of overt antisemitism.

More recently, Germany was a smoldering ruin after WWI, and many of the well-to-do Germans of the time were Jews. Coupling this with an old tradition of pogroms, Hebrew perfidy was an easy scapegoat for Germany's general misery.

Short answer: They'd been despised for nearly a millennium, but in the wake of World War I, it got a lot more personal.

Ok. But what I’m trying to understand is when in history (& why) according to the Nazi-types the Jews became evil. Not why Christian or Muslim have thought Jews to be evil, or when in actual history persecution started.

I would trace 'modern non-religious motivated anti-Semitic lore' back to the advent of scientific racism which began in the late 1700's with the classification of humanity into the 'five races' - and which we have been trying to discredit since WWII. I think the same process used to dehumanize Africans in the attempt to justify the slave trade was also applied to Jews. The whole concept of 'sub-human' originates from that period. I think the original motivations for classifying certain races as 'evil' always had (and still have) a religious side, but the works of Carl Linnaeus and Arthur Schopenhauer were used to hide that and give the bigots a 'sound, rational foundation' for their preconceptions. Unfortunately, given the state of the art of science at that time, it was considered sound and rational by many who were not religious bigots. It is only through modern genetics and evolutionary theory that the original presumptions have been disproved, yet far too many people (some of this board, but I generally avoid those threads) still believe in the old paradigm.

But when did they become such corrupted? According to modern non-religious motivated anti-Semitic lore.

Non-religious (and anti-religious) people are as much products of their environment as religious people. People who grew up in a culture that had scorned Jews since the twelfth century, with incidents of anti-semitism going back to the second century, did not simply cast off their prejudices the moment they cast off their religious beliefs.

When looked at from the perspective of mainstream society, accusations of "clannishness," even though based on error, would appear equally true to Nazis, atheistic socialists, and Christians. (That such people would choose to include non-observant Jews in their false accusations of clannishness would be simply the nature of xenophobia where, once someone is identified as "other," all related accusations cling even though any individual may not be participating any any activity that was actually associated with the group.)

To entice medieval knights to join the Crusades, Church authorities re-interpreted "Thou shat not kill" as "Thou shalt not kill fellow Christians." This made the dreaded Saracens fair game for knightly bloodlust. But up north in Germany, it had the unintended consequence of making Jews fair game as well, and started a long tradition of overt antisemitism.

I don't recall any Church re-interpretation of that commandment. (Given the rather bloody history of Europe prior to the Crusades, no actual excuses were needed.) Beyond that, the attacks on Jewish communities that accompanied the First Crusade were not really matters of knightly attacks on non-Christians, but spontaneous assaults by the footsoldiers and the townsmen as they passed through.

I could see the events of the First Crusade rendered as "Thou shalt not kill fellow Christians," but the way it occurred was more along the lines of "we are going to kill non-Christians and here are some in our midst." In fact, a number of bishops along the route actually made attempts to prevent the massacres.
A second motive for some of the massacres was probably nothing more than greed. Many Jewish communities were relatively wealthy and it was easier to murder and steal from someone who could be described as "other" (although the First Crusade, particularly, included quite a few events in which the Crusaders attacked or robbed their fellow Christians as they made their way toward Constantinople).

That Jews are evil is of course common knowledge. But when did they become such corrupted? According to modern non-religious motivated anti-Semitic lore. Not when people started to consider them evil, which is another matter. I put the question on a Stormfront’ish board but got no answer. Were the Jews scheming in their evil ways during the Babylonian Captivity? Were they evil when Alexander passed through? Were they evil when they rebelled against Rome? Or did they only become evil at a later time?

They became evil at the moment of the events recounted in Matthew 27: 24-25. (Before that, they were merely annoying.)

I don't recall any Church re-interpretation of that commandment. (Given the rather bloody history of Europe prior to the Crusades, no actual excuses were needed.) Beyond that, the attacks on Jewish communities that accompanied the First Crusade were not really matters of knightly attacks on non-Christians, but spontaneous assaults by the footsoldiers and the townsmen as they passed through.

I could see the events of the First Crusade rendered as "Thou shalt not kill fellow Christians," but the way it occurred was more along the lines of "we are going to kill non-Christians and here are some in our midst." In fact, a number of bishops along the route actually made attempts to prevent the massacres.
A second motive for some of the massacres was probably nothing more than greed. Many Jewish communities were relatively wealthy and it was easier to murder and steal from someone who could be described as "other" (although the First Crusade, particularly, included quite a few events in which the Crusaders attacked or robbed their fellow Christians as they made their way toward Constantinople).

I don't recall any Church re-interpretation of that commandment. (Given the rather bloody history of Europe prior to the Crusades, no actual excuses were needed.) Beyond that, the attacks on Jewish communities that accompanied the First Crusade were not really matters of knightly attacks on non-Christians, but spontaneous assaults by the footsoldiers and the townsmen as they passed through.

The Church re-interpretation (and its consequences to German Jews) was mentioned in Terry Jones's The Crusades. I'd need to watch it again to see if he was referring to knights or footsoldiers, though.

It's all the Khazars' fault. Ok, in real life, the Khazars were this Turkish tribe in the Ukraine whose upper class converted to Judaism because they were bordering the Byzantine and Abbassid empires. Their logic was that they needed to convert to a monotheistic religion in order to be taken seriously by either empire, but if they converted to either Christianity or Islam, that would put them under the sway of a more powerful empire.

So in anti-Semite land, the Khazars then went on to become all the Ashkenazi Jews. So, that's why modern Jews are evil and Jesus wasn't. It's because modern Jews are fake Jews.

To entice medieval knights to join the Crusades, Church authorities re-interpreted "Thou shat not kill" as "Thou shalt not kill fellow Christians." This made the dreaded Saracens fair game for knightly bloodlust. But up north in Germany, it had the unintended consequence of making Jews fair game as well, and started a long tradition of overt antisemitism.

I don't think the attacks on the Jewish ghettos during the Crusades was due to a reinterpretation of doctrine so much as a logical extension of it. The justification given for the Crusades were "The holy places are in danger from the enemies of Christ". So you had mobs who said, "Why go to Jerusalem to fight the enemies of Christ while we tolerate the enemies of Christ in our midst.", the aforementioned enemies being the Jews.

Well, I'd think that those who hate Jews on a racial basis would say that Jews have always been evil because their genes have always been evil.

Not always, Alessan.

In the excellent book, Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz the author tries to get at the roots and hold that the Civil War has on people in the south. Racism and anti-semitism comes up fairly naturally.

In one episode in the Carolinas Horwitz is having dinner with a reenactor and brings up the subject of racism and anti-semitism and is told that white people HAVE to be against the jews because the jewish race is naturally superior to whites. They're smarter, faster, better with money and have a greater ability to think. Therefore it's work against jews or be dominated.

It led to this great (paraphrased) exchance:

Horwitz: Have you ever met a jew?

Re-enactor: Once, several years ago.

Horwitz: Well, now it's two.

In short, this is a man who wasn't hating because of a sense of superiority but rather inferiority and self-defense. I can't say that's a prevailing argument but it stuck with me for being so different than the regular approach to anti-semitism that we see so often.

Jews were almost built for the role. A relatively insular identifiable minority that is generally more prosperous than the general population, a despot really couldn't ask for a better scapegoat, perhaps if they ate children or had horns...

Jews were an emasculated people with no way to protect themselves. They were in the ridiculous position of lending money but not being able to back it up with any kind of power. If you borrow money from the mob, you pay them back because you know they'll kick your ass if you don't. Borrow from a bank, and you pay them back because they'll send burly men to repossess your things if you don't (and the power of the police is on the side of the banks.) Ultimately there is physical force to back up these institutions. What did the Jews have to back them up? Absolutely nothing - but they still stayed in the usury business, which in my opinion is insane.

Jews were an emasculated people with no way to protect themselves. They were in the ridiculous position of lending money but not being able to back it up with any kind of power. If you borrow money from the mob, you pay them back because you know they'll kick your ass if you don't. Borrow from a bank, and you pay them back because they'll send burly men to repossess your things if you don't (and the power of the police is on the side of the banks.) Ultimately there is physical force to back up these institutions. What did the Jews have to back them up? Absolutely nothing - but they still stayed in the usury business, which in my opinion is insane.

Not so insane if you're barred from pretty much every other type of work, as Jews were. Better a shitty job than starving to death.

The Egyptians declared the Jews evil for never finishing that pyramid project. Then Philistines, Greeks, and everyone else in the Mediterranean joined in the fun. Then Jews left Palestine looking for greener pastures, and moved into the backyard of the people who hated them the most. Later, the ones who stayed in the middle east were considered evil by Moslems. The trouble is, they just refuse to drop their evil religion and join the good ones.

So once the Jews had demonsrated their evil quality by being considered evil by eveyone else, and new group in town is going to point at the obviously evil people in their midst as being a problem, not the popular folks.

became evil when cursed by the Hag. I even got a card saying "You are now evil" . Later, I drew an angel from the adventure deck and became good again. In the end, I beat out the Ghoul, the Prophetess and the rest and won the Crown Of Command.

__________________
Nothing is impossible if you can imagine it. That's the wonder of being a scientist!
Prof Hubert Farnsworth, Futurama

There are some strains of white racist ideology which hold that the Jews are physically descended from a union between Eve and the serpent - that they are literally descended from Satan - and have thus always been evil.

This is not helped by John 8:44 in which Jesus tells "the Jews" that their father is the Devil.

I don't think you can separate this question from the religious one. If any other group in Europe had resisted conversion, they would be considered evil also. Look at women who were suspected of maintaining the old traditions.and were thus considered evil witches.
Christians forced us into ghettos and blamed us for being insular. They exiled us from countries then blamed us for not having roots there. And I agree that once the hatred is there, pulling away the nominal religious nature of it changes little.

Jews were an emasculated people with no way to protect themselves. They were in the ridiculous position of lending money but not being able to back it up with any kind of power. If you borrow money from the mob, you pay them back because you know they'll kick your ass if you don't. Borrow from a bank, and you pay them back because they'll send burly men to repossess your things if you don't (and the power of the police is on the side of the banks.) Ultimately there is physical force to back up these institutions. What did the Jews have to back them up? Absolutely nothing - but they still stayed in the usury business, which in my opinion is insane.

Probably they found ways to get paid enough of the time to make a profit overall. Jews in medieval Europe practiced moneylending because they could do it and nobody else could. The Church considered usury a sin, and any interest at all on a loan to be usury.

Probably they found ways to get paid enough of the time to make a profit overall. Jews in medieval Europe practiced moneylending because they could do it and nobody else could. The Church considered usury a sin, and any interest at all on a loan to be usury.

The Jewish money lenders were somewhat protected. It was a sin for a Christian to charge interest on a loan, so they didn't loan money. Since the Jews were going to Hell anyway, it was no big deal for them to sin, and money was needed for the economy, so Jews could generally be assured of getting paid so they could stay in business.

OTOH, if business was not good, and there was no prospect for future loans, there would be no incentive to pay the debt. After all, the guy's a Jew. He helped kill Jesus. Also, if you were just mad at some Christian, you could get in trouble for taking it out on him. Just pick some Jew at random, kill him, rape his wife, and steal his property. You'll feel a lot better.

In modern times at least, anti-Semitism flared up in the nineteenth century when the Jews became associated with the social upheavals caused by industrialization replacing the older agricultural basis of society. A quote originally on Wiki's article on the Protocols of Zion (but since edited out) summarizes this nicely:

Quote:

In these respects, the Protocols draws on long-standing criticisms of modernity, radicalism and capitalism, but presents them as part of an orchestrated plot, rather than as a product of impersonal historical processes.

On Martin Luther's bias, and the current Lutheran hierarchy 'backing off' on his pronouncements;

doesn't that almost rise to the level of a paradox?

After all, his name is on all the stationary. (I am not advocating the Lutherans re-adopt Luther's bias) But by backing off on this 'pronouncement' of his, aren't they opening the door for the rest of us to start speculating what else he was wrong about? Curious, his followers would 'open the door' to this line of inquiry. Of course, keeping his view on Judaism is odious too, but, keeping that view, to me, does not undermine Luther's and the Lutheran hierarchies authority to present themselves as a religion.

For want of a better analogy, it would seem the current Lutheran administration is in violation of the franchise agreement. Perhaps a 'rebranding' (like the RLDS to Community of Christ) would have been a better way to 'fix' the problem and maintain the appearance of "whatever term they use to self describe their take on the Catholic concept of infallibilty"

I confess, a stronger appreciation for those of the Literal and Innerent biblical viewpoint, as it would seem at least that branch of religiosity would be immune to these little 'gotchas'.

There is, in fact, a compelling anthropological reason for the isolation and demonization of Jews in Europe (in particular).

It's a phenom that is by no means restricted to Jews. What is necesary is to have a reasonably rigidly stratified society, with a small upper class ruling a much larger traditional peasantry; and a small group of (tolerated) outsiders to the system. These people, having no local ties, fill the role of functionaries to the upper class - often undertaking unpopular jobs such as "moneylender" or "rent collecter" (Jews often did this job in, for example, Ukraine for Polish overlords). In short, to fill out a sort of middle class.

In traditional society, the upper class cannot do these tasks without losing caste, and the peasantry generally cannot because it would alienate them from existing communal ties, or lead to excessive 'corruption' of the letting-the-brother-in-law-off-the-rent-hook kind. A "tolerated" outsider group fills the gap; in the case of Jews, they were "tolerated" by official Christian doctrine but not considered part of society; their ties were to each other, not to the mass of pesantry; the upper class protected them from the wrath of the peasants, while "milking" them (thus not arousing anger against itself). In England, for example, Jews were considered officially the 'property' of the English Crown which set up a special "Exchequer of the Jews" and thus profited from money-lending without appearing to do any itself.

The system breaks down when an indgenous non-minority middle class springs up. The "tolerated" group is no longer necessary and so is soon discarded (that is, official protection is withdrawn). In Western Europe, for example, the Jews lost their monopoly on banking activities to such groups as the Templars and then the Italian banking families - no longer needed, the monarchs which once protected them sometimes decided to make one last profit by expropriating all their money and expelling them (as I believe Edward I of England did).

Point is, that similar groups have a similar social niche - for example, the "Overseas Chinese" in Indonesia.

To answer the question - Jews became officially wholly "evil" in Europe (as opposed to "tolerated") when, as a class, they were considered no longer really necessary by the upper class. In the case of England, this has a more or less exact date: 1290.

Serving the upper class is certainly a factor. But Gypsies received similar treatment in Europe, and the only ones serving the upper class were slaves. American Indians were evil as soon as they were met by Europeans. Racism and religious hatred might be a factor also.

Serving the upper class is certainly a factor. But Gypsies received similar treatment in Europe, and the only ones serving the upper class were slaves. American Indians were evil as soon as they were met by Europeans. Racism and religious hatred might be a factor also.

Obviously racism and religious hatred is a factor. The question though is why this particular situation (that of the Jews) differs from others.

In this case, the religious hatred (and simultaneous closeness) explains why the Jews were both hated and tolerated: hated because they had 'rejected Christ', and yet simultaneously tolerated because that was official Church doctrine.

Being both hated and tolerated made it possible for Jews to exist in the middle-class niche in Europe.

Why did this 'tude of simultaneous hatred and tolerance change into one of simple hatred? That is explained by historical factors - notably, the process described above (and also the shattering of the unity of the medieval church, etc.)

This thread was revived just now by some jackass. I've banned him and removed his post, and I'm going to close this thread. If anyone's interested in the original topic, send me a private message and I'll consider reopening it.